It was a surprised to me, as a former student of Clemen Chiang, the so called self-proclaimed no.1 Option Trading Guru. As through my experienced , he was a very good motivator, but I just couldn’t imagine that such a high profile person, fake his way through for so many years, furthermore the seminar was organised by Success Resource.
As published in The Straits Times March 14,2009 Saturday
How to spot self-styled ‘experts’ with fake degrees
I APPLAUD Ms Sandra Davie’s report yesterday (’Trading ‘expert’ ordered to refund fees’) on the success of 49 litigants in claiming a partial refund from Mr Clemen Chiang for his option trading programme.
Mr Chiang was found to have misrepresented his expertise as having a doctorate when it turned out that it was from an unaccredited university.
And yet, for every Clemen Chiang exposed, there are dozens of self-styled gurus and consultants working in the marketplace as “experts” with fake degrees, especially PhDs.
After 10 years of running a business to help organisations nurture leaders, here are my tips on spotting fake doctorates:
1. The person may have a list of legitimate degrees, but the PhD has no attribution or may just have after it - in brackets - USA or UK. There is also sometimes an academic gap between the bachelor’s degree and the PhD, that is, no master’s degree.
2. He liberally uses the word doctorate in collaterals and websites, and almost always has “Dr” in front of his name, as well as an added “PhD”. Almost no legitimate PhD holder I know uses both “Dr” and “PhD” on his calling card.
3. The PhDs are almost always in the softer fields like business, communications, human resources or the arts. One can get caught out too easily with a fake degree in the hard sciences.
4. His resume contains a significant amount of puffery and unsubstantiated claims, often with a self-proclaimed “guru” status.
5. His hectic and full professional profile casts doubts if he had the time to squeeze in a doctorate. I know of one such consultant who has six PhDs. Go figure.
6. When challenged, he quickly claims it is merely an honorary degree.
But the most important issue is whether the Ministry of Education or Manpower is regulating what amounts to civil and/or criminal misrepresentation when people use such degrees. It is a punishable offence in Oregon, the United States, for example, to use a fake degree to secure work.
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Tags: Forex, forex trading, fx, How to make money, How to make money through forex, Trading Forex
